Plantation is the rum arm of Alexandre Gabriel’s drinks empire. He’s the man behind Pierre Ferrand Cognac house and Citadelle Gin. Plantation owns the West Indies Distillery in Barbados, and also bottles rum from around the Caribbean and beyond. Wherever they are from, all the Plantation rums go through a double-ageing, so first in the hot climate of Caribbean or wherever they are distilled, and they are shipped to France for some cooler climate ageing, sometimes in ex-Cognac casks. As well as being a distiller and entrepreneur, Gabriel also a keen historian of drinks, delving into the archives and sniffing out old recipes and techniques which he then recreates in modern form. One such bottling Plantation Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple Rum made in association with Dave Wondrich and inspired by Reverend Stiggins from Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers.